Three Times
by Mischa1
Summary: After the events of 'Medusa', Scully considers the small steps that her working relationship with Doggett has taken.


"Three Times"  
by Mischa  
mischablue@iprimus.com.au  
  
Category: V  
Rating: G  
Keywords: Doggett-friendly  
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine. Property of CC, FOX, RP,  
GA, etc. Not makin' any money off this.  
Spoilers: 'Medusa'. Touches lightly upon 'The Gift'.  
References to previous seasons, passing mentions of  
'Grotesque' and 'Squeeze'  
  
Summary: After the events of 'Medusa', Scully considers the  
small steps that her working relationship with Doggett has  
taken.  
  
Author's Note: Response to Summer/Mischa fanfic challenge:  
'Medusa' post-ep.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Three Times"  
  
And to think Scully had once thought that Mulder got himself  
in trouble on a lot on their cases.  
  
It wasn't just him getting hurt, or injured, or having to  
reach for that ankle holster more often than any other agent  
probably would. She remembered Mulder being drawn  
psychologically into the darkness of their cases, almost  
losing himself staring into whatever abyss presented itself.  
She remembered Mulder poking his hand into a tattered wall  
and realising his hand was covered in bile.  
  
Three times today, John Doggett had scared the hell out of  
her. *Three* times. He must have been having a run of  
exceptionally bad luck or something, and what made it worse  
for her was that she could see it all happening. From his  
eyes. The first time she had just been plain startled, like  
a creature had popped out of nowhere in a horror movie. The  
second time she had felt fear, knowing what she was seeing  
on the screen, unsure of where her partner was or what had  
happened to him. The third time... a cold sense of dread, an  
irrational sense of certainty, watching the train come  
towards them both, wondering what the hell he was thinking,  
hearing the horrible sounds of metal against metal and  
fearing the worst as Doggett's world seemingly diminished  
into static.  
  
No. No static, not now. They were coming home now. The  
streetlights? The road ahead? They were heading home. All  
they had to do was just drive and they would reach the end  
and be home. Scully took a deep breath, kept her focus on  
the driving. Beside her, Doggett was asleep. She had checked  
him over carefully, badgered him until he complained, making  
sure that he wasn't suffering from concussion, and then she  
had allowed him to sleep. He had shot her a frustrated look  
and the minute his head settled against the glass of the  
side window he was out like a light.  
  
Did he even realise how much she could see and hear from  
where she stood in that control room?  
  
Scully shot another quick glance at her partner. Still fast  
asleep. She supposed she should be thankful.  
  
That ceiling. That damned ceiling. She didn't know what had  
happened, and wasn't willing to admit was she feared: that  
Doggett had been knocked unconscious, that he had been  
killed, that someone had ripped off his headset to keep her  
from investigating, or... she didn't really want to admit  
it... that he had gotten fed up with her absence and had  
taken off without wanting her along for the ride. Scully had  
feared he was dead, but had felt an angry, irrational moment  
where she had been convinced he had ditched her.  
  
He wasn't Mulder. It still amazed her that sometimes she had  
to remind herself of that. Doggett was crazy and stubborn in  
his own way, but he had never run off on a tangent and left  
her behind. Granted, he didn't seem like the kind of man who  
would come up with tangents bizarre enough to warrant him  
running off. His stolidity, his dependability, was a comfort  
to her. In sleep, Doggett didn't look tortured or worried or  
painfully vulnerable. Haunted by the whims of dream, maybe,  
but all sleep really did for him was erase some of the lines  
in his rugged face.  
  
Lieutenant Bianco, facing Scully -- Agent Doggett -- down.  
Hearing her partner's voice in her ears, defending her  
decision to send him down alone. She was still amazed by  
that, that he could trust her judgement so readily. The  
right call. He thought that she had made the right call, and  
he didn't even know why.  
  
Three times today, however, he had given her cause to  
seriously doubt that.  
  
Scully refused to even think about seeing that train come  
closer on that screen. She was tempted to reach out and  
touch  
him, just to make sure he was actually there. Held herself  
back, afraid of waking him, unsure of her place.  
  
Those three times, she felt responsible. Wanted to throw her  
headset as hard as possible at Karras and run into that  
tunnel after her partner. Conflict had played in her mind as  
logic and emotion and responsibility warred within. Her  
baby, and risking her own health with the contagion. Karras,  
doing his damned best to run the show and to pull the rug  
out from under them. Doggett, stuck in that tunnel with  
God-knew-what and on the trail of a cowardly lieutenant who  
didn't have the insight to know the consequences of any  
possible escape. Dealing the with CDC, co-ordinating  
evacuative efforts. The greater good had won out, as it  
always had, but she still couldn't help feeling as though  
she should be held accountable for not joining them in that  
subway.  
  
[I could be dyin' in here for all she knows.]  
  
Thank God you're not, Agent Doggett, was what she wanted to  
say. Reason won out and she kept that thought to herself.  
Besides, he seemed so back to normal already. There was no  
point in her not being exactly the same. She had just taken  
a quiet, imperceptible breath and spoken quietly to him.  
Fine again.  
  
[Well, you're not... Agent Doggett.]  
  
She hadn't slipped. She was about to, but she hadn't...  
  
"Agent Scully?"  
  
Reality came flooding back to her. Doggett sat quietly next  
to her, suddenly painfully alert. One eye fixed on the road,  
the other on her.  
  
[I was just your eyes and ears.]  
  
How long had he been awake?  
  
"Agent Scully?" he repeated for the fourth or fifth time,  
his voice tinged with something between concern and alarm.  
  
She returned to herself. "Uh, yes, Agent Doggett?"  
  
"Where were you just then?"  
  
Scully shook her head slightly, focusing back on the road.  
Couldn't quite shake off the sense that he was still  
watching her. "Nowhere, Agent Doggett. I was just thinking."  
  
He nodded, glancing at the endless miles of asphalt ahead,  
looking back at his partner. "Want me to take over there?"  
  
Jesus, he was nothing if not hardheaded. "You're not meant  
to be driving," she said firmly. Doggett set his jaw like he  
was going make something of that, but obviously thought  
better.  
  
"Whatever you say goes, Dr. Scully," he rumbled. She shot  
him a sharp look, but there was no rancour in his voice. A  
quiet light of appreciation in his eyes. Maybe she should  
pull the Dr. Scully routine on him more often. "You okay  
there?" Doggett asked, a little gentler.  
  
"Yeah." Scully swallowed. "I was just... my mind was  
somewhere else."  
  
Doggett adjusted himself in his seat so that he leaned  
against the door and could face her. "Hell of a stupid idea  
for Karras to put the trains back on the line," he  
commented. He was trying to draw her out into conversation  
and they both knew it.  
  
She shrugged. "Like I said, Agent Doggett, he was just doing  
his job."  
  
"So were we. So was Lyle. Hell, so was Melnick, and look  
where he ended up."  
  
"Agent Doggett --"  
  
"Lieutenant Bianco, though, him I had a problem with. What  
if he'd found a way outta there? Spread the contagion to the  
whole goddamned city?"  
  
"He didn't, Agent Doggett. Thanks to your actions, he  
didn't."  
  
"Don't lump the credit for that on me, Agent Scully. That  
was those sea critters taking him down, not me." Cowardly  
son of a bitch. He thought he'd seen enough of those back in  
New York, but they seemed to be par for the course in the  
X-Files. Those who put self-preservation above all else. He  
remembered a certain town sheriff who had thought nothing of  
shooting a man in the back and scowled to himself.  
  
"All the same." Scully took her gaze off the road, that  
limited, bounded road, for a second to shoot him a look. He  
stared steadily back.  
  
Irritated, Doggett stared out of the window, gazing into the  
open night. He knew that something was bothering his partner  
about this case, something fairly serious, but he wasn't  
sure if it was his place to ask. He opened his mouth to say  
something, then shut it again, catching Scully's attention.  
  
"Agent Doggett?"  
  
"That man," he said finally. "Cop killer. One who ran into  
me. How do you explain that?"  
  
Scully's brow creased. Maybe he'd been hit harder in the  
head than she thought. Her fingers itched to check his blood  
pressure. "How do you mean?"  
  
"The man was dead. Unequivocally." A smile crept onto  
Scully's lips and she bit it back. "Came rushin' out of  
nowhere for the sole purpose of ploughing into me. How...?  
Uh, electrical currents, maybe?"  
  
She glanced at him curiously. Doggett was clearly trying out  
a few theories of his own. Maybe he was becoming a little  
less resistant to extreme possibilities in his own way.  
Wandering cautiously onto the road less taken. "Possibly,"  
she said cautiously. She'd had no real idea whether or not  
that man was being burned to death as he violently knocked  
over her partner. Melnick had been fairly functional --  
though in pain -- while the organism had sparked away at his  
flesh. But the least she owed him was an answer.  
"Considering that the nervous system *is* triggered by  
electrical currents, then yes," she continued. "It's quite  
possible that the electricity generated by the organism was  
fueling that man's movements."  
  
"Hmm. Maybe," he replied, but he didn't press the point.  
Doggett focused on some invisible point far off at the end  
of the road, obviously mulling that one over.  
  
"Then again, Melnick was still capable of some movement  
while being affected by the organism," she added. "Perhaps  
that man's... last actions were his way of calling for  
help."  
  
"While being eaten to death." His voice was flat.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Helluva way to seek assistance," he muttered, and fell  
silent again.  
  
She watched him peripherally. Wondered. She knew he blamed  
himself to some extent for killing the organism before they  
could investigate it, but there was always the flipside: his  
actions had prevented it from being spread any further than  
it already had. They had done their job, but she knew his  
mind was still seeking closure on the case.  
  
So was her own.  
  
It wasn't too often that a case came along that excited her  
scientific mind the way this case had. It was one of the  
reasons she had turned to forensic pathology, to the FBI, to  
investigating in the field... medicine alone couldn't  
provide the secret, cryptic thrill of piecing together  
pieces of a puzzle and solving a crime. Scully couldn't deny  
that she felt the excitement of a new discovery creeping up  
her spine when she realised they were dealing with a  
previously unknown organism. And when she'd finally put the  
pieces together, worked out that sweat was the electrical  
conductor, Scully had felt as though she had made the same  
kind of logical leap that she had been in awe of long before  
its previous possessor faded into the night.  
  
She got the feeling that Mulder would have been proud.  
  
Beside her, Doggett was lightly dozing, still staring at the  
empty road ahead of them, his awareness clearly drifting  
away. She took a hand off the wheel and reached for him.  
"Agent Doggett?"  
  
He mumbled something to let her know he was listening. She  
touched his arm lightly. The muscles under her fingertips  
rippled as he roused himself. "Yeah?"  
  
In this early stage of their partnership, Mulder and herself  
had been at the same kind of place she and Doggett was at  
now. Loggerheads over different styles. The open mind  
against the sceptic. A little residual mistrust.  
  
A sense of growing respect.  
  
Scully gently squeezed her partner's arm. Kept her gaze on  
the road. Gave him what Mulder never had given her, so early  
on in the game. "You did well out there, Agent Doggett."  
Three times, you scared me, she thinks. Three times, you  
bounced back.  
  
He was wide awake now.  
  
"But you..."  
  
She shot him a look. Gratitude, and bewilderment, glinted in  
his eyes. He carefully placed his hand over hers. "We did  
this together, Agent Scully," he offered. He wanted to say  
more, but didn't know how to articulate it. She gave him a  
shy, small smile.  
  
"Yeah," she murmured. She gently pulled her hand away.  
Looked back at the road ahead. Saw much more than what was  
actually there. It looked as though it stretched on forever.  
Why keep on going straight? Why not take a detour?  
Thepossibilities, the amount of directions in which they  
could turn, were practically infinite. "Yeah."  
  
~END~  
  
Feedback is much appreciated.  
mischablue@iprimus.com.au 


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